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Minnesota teens start sports rental equipment program

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published 4:43 p.m. CT Feb. 11, 2018

Hamsa Osman, left and Charly Tiempos, founders of Sports Check it Out, a sports equipment checkout program for kids in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, stand with a variety of their equipment in Minneapolis on Feb. 4, 2018. (Easton Green/The Minnesota Daily via AP)(Photo11: Easton Green, AP)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Three Minneapolis residents have started a sports equipment and winter clothing rental program in a neighborhood where access to such gear is limited.

Charly Tiempos, Hamsa Osman and Sayed Adan started Sports — Check It Out at the Cedar Riverside Community School last year, the Minnesota Daily reported. Local youth can rent out sports gear and winter clothing from the program.

The teenagers were inspired to address their neighborhood's lack of sports equipment after attending a local AdVenture Capital startup competition in 2016.

"Basically, we had to come up with a problem in our community and find a solution to it," Osman said. "We thought, 'there are a lot of kids who don't have sports equipment but like sports, so how can we help them?'"

They presented the idea to local and national student startup competitions and secured $13,000 in funding.

Though Osman and Tiempos are in high school, they still travel to the community school to run the program. The program has introduced kids to new games and activities, Tiempos said.

"We have community play time. That's when we take a random game and show kids how to play," Tiempos said. "Frisbee golf they didn't know, and they were really happy."

Jennifer Weber is a community outreach director, student activities coordinator at the school and helps oversee the program. Local residents have been donating equipment to the organization, she said.

Other neighborhoods have also expressed interest in getting a Sports — Check It Out location, Weber said.

Sports — Check It Out will begin creating an app to better keep track of inventory and is looking to expand to other neighborhoods.

Osman and Tiempos also hope to take their idea into the classroom by creating a program to help teachers track school supplies they loan to students.